8th January 2006 : Baptism of our Lord : B
When I was searching for pictures suitable for this Sunday, on which we celebrate the baptism of our Lord Jesus, I came across something unexpected – a cross whose filename suggested that the illustrations printed on it depicted the story of Jesus’ nativity.
At the top is the Annunciation; on the left arm (facing the cross) we find the journey to Bethlehem, pregnant Mary sitting on a donkey; on the right arm of the cross we see the Magoi and their gifts; and right in the centre, most fittingly, the cross shows us the actual nativity scene, complete with bright star, laconically-inquisitive farm animals, Mary flaked out post-delivery next to Jesus in his manger and a bunch of shepherd-types.
But in the panel below the nativity scene is the bit I hadn’t expected: the baptism of Jesus by cousin John, with the holy family, Moses and possibly the saints all celestially witnessing this event we reflect on and wrestle with today.
I realised as I did my own wrestling and reflection that of course this is most appropriate. The baptism of Jesus effects the "closure" of this all-important, indispensable chapter that begins the story of Jesus. Rather than a separator or stand-alone beginning of the next part of the story, the baptism of Jesus stands dovetailing his birth and the coming preparation for and propulsion into earthly ministry.
While we may commonly assume that Jesus’ baptism is the beginning of that ministry, at the same time it draws together the threads of his birth and perhaps begins a beta-version answer to questions like, Why was Jesus born?
Mark doesn’t have to ask or answer the question because he does not mention Jesus’ birth. For Mark it seems that the baptism of Jesus is the earth-bound beginning, a shattering, planet-changing event that signals the in-rushing presence of God-on-earth.
I’m struck by the drama and energy of Mark’s depiction. It’s somewhat lost in English translations but the Greek happily provides us with a powerful complementary meeting between the divine and the earthly response in Jesus’ baptism.
Mark tells us that "as [Jesus] was coming up, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him." As I read these words I had a picture of the scene in the film The hunt for Red October in which the American submarine hastily and dramatically surfaces, so dramatically in fact that one of the Russian sailors quips, "The Captain has scared him out of the water!" In that scene the camera shows us the nose of the submarine, angled sharply, breaking the ocean’s surface and soaring upward momentarily before crashing in a great froth of water and spray. (We can get the same effect in the bath with a rubber ducky but it’s not quite as dramatic …)
In English we tend not to see the connection between "coming up" and "descending" but in Greek the words have a relationship: they are the same word, defined and redefined by differing prefixes so while Jesus comes up (anabainw) the Spirit comes down (katabainw) and ultimately we have one of those few but happy conjunctions in the Christian scriptures in which we find Father, Son and Holy Spirit present together when God speaks the words of approval and affirmation, You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.
But Mark adds another touch – one diluted when Matthew and Luke write their versions. For the latter, the heavens are simply "opened". In Mark they are "torn apart" – like the Temple curtain after Jesus’ death on the cross.
This is high drama and a powerful reminder that the baptism of Jesus is no mere act of obedience, the somewhat wishy-washy answer theology gives us in response to the question that excited Matthew, Luke and the early Church: Why did the sinless Jesus need to undergo John’s "baptism of repentance"?
Good question. Shame we have no good answers.
However, we do know that for Mark this was no mere formality or some event taken with ease when Jesus felt like it. This baptism is a moment in which heaven and earth collide. This is a moment of enormous energy and impulsion. This is a moment of awesome divine power merging with wholehearted, committed human response and connection.
This is a moment like the one I saw when my son was in primary school. Another student was rushing across the oval to meet his mother who told him that tonight they were going to have a special treat of some sort. This clearly pleased the boy, who promptly flung down his school bag, fell on his knees, clenched both fists together and explosively cried out, YES!
In coming to John for baptism Jesus allows God to enter this world through the Holy Spirit in such a way that the divine and the human are fully connected - as they have never been before or since. Here is not just intimate identification between human and divine but actual oneness. And God is skidding on the metaphorical divine knees, crying out, YES!
This is not to say that Spirit was unfamiliar with this planet or that human beings failed to welcome the Spirit in their lives. Genesis reminds us of the seminal activity of the Ruach in the creation of this world. The Living God speaks and in these words the Ruach, the breath, the Spirit works creation. John the evangelist will later deliberately echo all this as he reflects on Jesus as the Living Word creating a new understanding of God and God’s love for creation. Not a different understanding but a new one.
Paul reflects on the connection between baptism and the Spirit coming into the lives of the faithful, reminding us that John’s baptism of repentance did not confer the Spirit and suggesting, as we reflect on these readings, that what Jesus experienced with John the baptiser was not at all about his unnecessary repentance but about this moment of connection and oneness. As such, Jesus’ baptism is a revelation of the triune nature of the Living God, not the conundrum that Matthew and Luke needed to explain away by adding an apologetic conversation between John and Jesus.
For us it is a reminder that our own baptism leads us into a journey of finding that same oneness and connection ourselves. We find this somewhat more difficult than Jesus for obvious reasons! But difficulty is never an excuse for failing to make the attempt.
How, then, are we who are baptised in this Parish of the Holy Spirit, expressing our connection with the Living God? In what ways are we showing Westfield and the places beyond what God thinks of the world? and how are we demonstrating the love and compassion of this God of ours to those who most need to know this good news?
We know what Jesus did. What are WE doing?
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